Ultra fast chargers

In my newspaper today was a long article written by David Stringer and published by Bloomberg News. It discusses very powerful chargers that are now being introduced to the world market. One company making them is Tritium, located in Brisbane, Australia. They are said to be making among the most advanced car chargers available, promising to deliver a full charge to an EV car battery in just minutes.

The article says that thousands of these charging stations are being installed along highways from Shanghai to Germany to California, with the capacity to charge up to 20 miles of driving range in just one minute. Unfortunately, EVs can not take full advantage of these new charger systems right now and it will be later this year before they start arriving in the EV market.

Another manufacturer of these extreme chargers is Innogy's BTCPower, which has plants in California and the Philippines. Tritium offers charging stations that will add more than 215 miles of range in just 10 minutes. Ionity is building about 400 stations, with as many as six ultra fast chargers each, on European highways.

Electrify America, a VW unit created under a settlement due to their emissions scandal, is spending $2 billion on refueling stations around the U.S. over the next decade. Their first ultra fast charger was installed in Chicopee, Massachusetts last May.

"The speed at which current EVs can recharge is limited by such factors as the size of their batteries, the voltage the pack can accept and the charger's current." The article says it may be years before new electric vehicles can handle the power of these new chargers. Only Porsche's Taycan sports car, to be introduced later this year, will be able to take full advantage of the these ultra chargers. The roll out of the new chargers are considered to be part of a 10 year plan.

"By the end of 2018 there were more than 630,000 public charging stations installed globally, most of which are located in China. By 2030, there may be demand for more than 20 million public EV charging pumps, the International Energy Agency forecasts." According to the article.